Few published collections of Gaelic song place the songs or their singers and communities in context. Brìgh an Òrain - A Story in Every Song corrects this, showing how the inherited art of a fourth-generation Canadian Gael fits within biographical, social, and historical contexts. It is the first major study of its kind to be undertaken for a Scottish Gaelic singer. The forty-eight songs and nine folktales in the collection are transcribed from field recordings and presented as the singer performed them, with an English translation provided. All the songs are accompanied by musical transcriptions. The book also includes a brief autobiography in Lauchie MacLellan's entertaining narrative style. John Shaw has added extensive notes and references, as well as photos and maps. In an era of growing appreciation of Celtic cultures, Brìgh an Òrain - A Story in Every Song makes an important Gaelic tradition available to the general reader. The materials also serve as a unique, adaptable resource for those with more specialized research or teaching interests in ethnology/folklore, Canadian studies, Gaelic Language, ethnomusicology, Celtic studies, anthropology, and social history.

Lauchie MacLellan's profile page

John Shaw is the editor and translator of Tales Until Dawn: The World of a Cape Breton Gaelic Story-Teller and Brigh an Òrain: A Story in Every Song. He is senior lecturer in ethnology at the University of Edinburgh.

John Shaw's profile page

Alistair MacLeod was born in Saskatchewan in 1936 and raised in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. He has published two internationally acclaimed collections of short stories: The Lost Salt Gift of Blood (1976) and As Birds Bring Forth the Sun (1986). In 2000, these two books, accompanied by two new stories, were published as Island: The Collected Stories of Alistair MacLeod. In 1999, MacLeod's first novel, No Great Mischief, was published to stellar critical acclaim. The novel won the Dartmouth Book Award, the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, The Trillium Award, the CAA Award, and the Canadian Booksellers Association Libris Awards for Fiction Book of the Year and Author of the Year. In 2001, No Great Mischief was awarded the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, one of the world's most prestigious literary prizes.

Alistair MacLeod's profile page

"An excellent and valuable work. I have no doubt that this will be a much-quoted source for Gaelic ethnology in years to come." Colm J. O Boyle, department of Celtic Studies, University of Aberdeen "An excellent book. Brìgh an Òrain gives the reader a comprehensive and rounded view of the richness of the tradition inherited by Lauchie MacLellan and continues the process of redefining our understanding of the cultural legacy of, and the communal values in, the one Gaidhealtachd in North America." Pádraig ÓSiadhail, Chair, Department of Irish Studies, Saint Mary's University